Tubular sleeve markers are often used to mark elongated objects such as wires so that the wires can be distinguished from one another. Most commonly, such markers are employed when many wires are being used or the wires are run over long distances as, in both situations, it may be difficult to establish the different ends of a single wire.
In some instances, the tubular sleeve markers are prepared and presented in a flat configuration in which the tube form is pressed together to be flattened with creased axially-extending edges. The sleeves may be provided in flat form and often on a strip of paper for a number of reasons including to make the sleeves more compact for shipping, to better permit the attachment of multiple sleeves into a single strip, and to accommodate printing on the sleeve. When the sleeve has been folded to be flat, in order to apply the sleeve around the wire, the sleeve is pinched to open the central opening of the sleeve for insertion of the wire and lifted from the strip.
Accordingly, the manual application of tubular sleeve markers (whether folded or not) to wires is often a time-consuming and frustrating practice given the relatively small size of many sleeves and the dexterity required to apply the sleeve to the wire.